“My name’s Detective Brian Courtney. Why don’t we take a walk down the hall over here and I’ll hunt up some coffee for us.”
The officer at the information desk watched Bobby with her upper lip curled up. She was probably around fifty and hadn’t yet acclimated herself to the public-relations approach cops took these days, at least when there were witnesses around.
Courtney put us in a small beige room with five folding chairs and a five-foot-long folding table. We were being videotaped — standard operating procedure. “I’ll get us that coffee.”
Courtney came back with three paper cups of vending-machine coffee. He did this while opening and closing the doors. When he set them down, he said, “It tastes like shit, but hey, it’s warm, right?” Then he did Police 101. “Bobby, let’s get the basic facts down fast, and then we can go back for the details.”
“What facts?” Bobby snapped.
“Basically, how you killed them — the Davies woman and your father.”
Bobby lurched from his chair. I was sitting next to him and grabbed his arm and forced him to sit back down.
“We didn’t come here to confess,” I said. “Bobby didn’t have anything to do with those murders. There’s a warrant out for his arrest. All we’re doing is honoring the warrant. And in a few minutes Jim Shapiro will be here, and I don’t plan to say anything else about the case until he’s here.”
“Jim Shapiro. Must be nice to have the kind of money it takes to hire him.”
“He says it’s pro bono. He believes, as do I, that Bobby didn’t have anything to do with the crimes.”
“Pro bono. Jim must have bought his allotment of classic MGs for this year. He collects them, you know.”
“Yeah, I heard they were going to pass a law against that. It must’ve gotten through, huh?”
It was at that moment that he discovered me. I’d just been some nuisance bastard dragging a double-murderer into his clutches, but now I was as much his enemy as Bobby was. Now I was real and he didn’t like me at all.
“Exactly what is your interest in this?” His fake cordiality had a nasty edge to it now.
“I’m a friend of his wife’s.”
“Oh? And how does that work?”
“It ‘works’ that I’m a friend of his wife’s.”
“Uh-huh. Are you a lawyer, Mr. Conrad?”
“No, I’m not. I’m a political consultant.”
You could see all the computing going on behind the robot eyes. “I see. And you’re working in this area?”
“My firm is. For the Cooper campaign.”
The smile was deadly. “Congresswoman Cooper. I wouldn’t advertise that in this building if I was you.”
A knock interrupted our sparring. A voice said: “I’ve got Jim Shapiro out here, Lieutenant. All right if he comes in?”
“Fine. Send him in.”
Shapiro came in like a bullet. He looked ready for court in a custom-cut gray pinstriped suit. He carried a briefcase and a cup of 7-Eleven coffee. He smelled of masculine cologne and cold air. He set the briefcase on the table and nodded to me. He didn’t look at Bobby; instead his eyes focused on Courtney. “You’re not nearly as pretty as Kapoor, Brian.”
“Kapoor is in court. I got ahold of her. She’s on her way. For now here I am and here you are and now that you’re here I don’t know exactly why our friend Mr. Conrad has to sit in.”
Shapiro’s tone was icy. “He did you and the police force a big favor, Lieutenant. This was successfully resolved without anybody being injured.” The implication being that Courtney might be disappointed about that fact.
Courtney shrugged. “Whatever. I’d be just as happy if he left.”
I was on my feet before Jim Shapiro could say anything. Bobby watched me with the eyes of a child who knew he was about to be deserted.
“It’s been a pleasure, Lieutenant.”
“Right back at you, Mr. Conrad.”
Shapiro glanced at me, then at Courtney, then back at me. He laughed. “I take it you two aren’t in danger of falling in love, huh?”
“He works with Congresswoman Cooper.”
“Oh, yes, the dreaded Congresswoman Cooper. Hell, Brian, I’m one of her supporters, too.”
“Right. But Mr. Conrad here is actually in the business of getting her elected.”
“Thanks, Jim.” I reached over and put my hand on Bobby’s shoulder. His eyes were despondent; his mouth was crimped. “Jim’ll call me when this is over, Bobby. We’re going to take care of this. I promise you.”
I knew I was amusing Courtney. He was taking great pleasure in my frustration.
Shapiro patted me on the back. I went to the door. I thought of looking back, taking a last shot at Courtney. But what would be the point?
I opened the door and stepped into the hall. A friendly face above a blue uniform said, “There’s some fresh coffee in the break room down the hall. You won’t have to drink any more of that machine crap.”
“Thanks,” I said. I had a fair share of police friends in Chicago. Nice to know that the Aldyne police had at least one member who decided that civility wasn’t an admission of weakness.
But all I wanted was to get out of the station house. My footsteps snapped down the polished floor of the corridor and around a corner. Detective Kapoor, sheathed in a sleek blue suit, had probably been checking something at the front desk before heading to the interrogation room.
When she saw me, her dark eyes gleamed with humor. “Good to see you again, Mr. Conrad.”
“I just met your Detective Courtney.”
The smile now touched her rich red lips. “Careful what you say. He hears everything.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. The problem is he’s hearing things that aren’t true. Bobby Flaherty didn’t kill anybody.”
“And you’re going to do our department the favor of telling us who did?”
“Maybe even better. How about you tell me since you’re the police and I’m not?”
The polite smile left the perfectly constructed face. “Detective Courtney and I have put together a good preliminary case against your young friend, Mr. Conrad. That doesn’t mean we’ll stop looking for other suspects. But it does mean that we’ve got good sound reasons to make him our chief suspect, at least for the time being.”
She started walking past me before I could say anything. “Have a good day, Mr. Conrad.” Not favoring me with a look back as she spoke.
Then I was outside in a lashing wind and hurrying to my rental.
Chapter 20
Sitting in a Starbucks, I used my cell phone to call Heather at her sister’s beauty shop. Sister answered the phone, and when I identified myself, she said, “I’ve been working on her but she won’t tell me anything. She got drunk last night and didn’t come in until late this morning. She’s not in real good shape. I’ll do my best to get her to talk to you.”
“I appreciate that. Thanks.”
I called the office and spoke to Ben.
“I got a call from a media rep, Dev. He said Duffy’s media man just made a big buy for both thirty-second and ten-second spots. And he’s heard that he’s buying them all over the district.”
“They’re going to jump on it. But Duffy’s smart. He won’t come at us head-on. It’ll all be by inference.”
“The rep says he’ll let me know the minute they get a spot. I’ll run out there to look at it.”
“I can see it now. Three women sitting at a table and an off-camera voice says, ‘Will the woman who had a child out of wedlock please raise her hand?’ And then the Susan look-alike will not only raise her hand, she’ll start bawling her ass off because she’s so ashamed of herself.”